


Dalish of the Chargers

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Culture, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Elves, Drabble, Gen, Mages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name isn't Dalish, not really.  But that's what the Chargers call her; she calls her staff a bow instead; and somehow it feels right. </p><p>(Quick character study on Dalish, the mage.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dalish of the Chargers

Her name isn’t Dalish.  Not really. **  
**

_Dalish_  means leaf and loam, sunlight glimmering through the trees’ canopy, the smell of smoke and hearth and halla.

 _Dalish_  means tradition, or as much of it as anyone remembers, in words that nobody knows anymore except in myth and story.

 _Dalish_  means the gleam in the Keeper’s eye when her magic freezes fennecs in the woods, when the bow drops from her hands in shock.  She’d only ever wanted to be a hunter with her sister, to track and stalk, to send an arrow true.  She’d wanted to help the clan.

But not like this.  Not with ice on a summer’s day, the fennec frozen still and solid.

She heard the murmurs in the night, soft voices in other aravels, whispers of her future; and they never asked, only told.  It was her duty, the whispers said. 

She didn’t want it.  Didn’t want life and myth and legend springing from her hands like flame; didn’t want that lonely look she saw the Keeper wear so often.  She only ever wanted to belong, to be one of the flock.

She never wanted to be a shepherd.

She left her bow in her parents’ aravel.  Left herself, too, or who she used to be.  The night she left the woods was cold, but then, she could light a fire anywhere.

They call her  _Dalish_  now.  She does not correct them.  She is, she supposes, and she’s still light on her feet, quick in fen and forest while the others step so clumsily.  A few of the old words still linger in her throat.  Some habits die hard.

She can’t bring herself to say it –  _mage_  – not yet.  Maybe not ever.  Her staff hangs too heavy at her back, but it’s how she best can help, and so she wields it as she must.  But she feels braver, pretending it to be a bow, and the others let her be.

Her name isn’t Dalish.  Not really.

Yet it’s what her new clan calls her, and in their smiles, their shouts, their battles, she feels she can belong.


End file.
